I hope this technical difficulty will not affect my time.
Professor Russell, thank you for appearing before us. Unlike Mr. Reid, I cannot pretend to have read your book from beginning to end. My parliamentary activities and my weekend commitments require so much work that I have no time to read it.
But I took the time to listen to you and to read your notes. By the way, your document is very well written, both in English and in French. In both languages, in the second paragraph, you bring up the idea of what is “normal“ twice: “Normally, prorogation is an uncontentious event in the life of a Parliament. Its normal use is to bring a session to an end...”
Later in the text, you say that there has really been controversy seeing that Prime Minister Harper used it twice, two Decembers in a row. There is no need for me to remind you of the two controversial incidents since everyone here is in the know.
Actually, you have some doubts about the political use of prorogation. Could you comment on the issue quickly? Do not give me a four-minute answer because I only have five minutes and I have other questions.